Adrienne Brodeur on Family Myths, Wounded People, and Honest Fiction
About this episode
Adrienne Brodeur discusses family myths, the complexities of estrangement, and the nature of honest fiction with Jen Hatmaker.
Description: Some families run on rules nobody ever wrote down. Here is your role. Here is what we talk about. Here is who gets forgiven and who gets blamed. We accept those terms as children, and then one day we look up and wonder who exactly signed us up for the job. August’s Jen Hatmaker Book Club pick is Little Monsters, and Adrienne Brodeur came with the whole story behind it. She spent thirty years on the other side of the pen, co-founding Zoetrope: All-Story with Francis Ford Coppola, editing at HMH Books, judging the National Book Award, and now running Aspen Words. She published one novel of her own in 2005, then waited fourteen years for the next book, a memoir that broke a silence she had kept since she was fourteen. Adrienne and Jen get into the unspoken rules every family runs on, why estrangement takes love rather than indifference, and what Cain and Abel taught her about the gifts we give our parents. Adrienne explains why fiction can feel more honest than memoir, makes an unpopular case for Ken, and talks about writing mania with compassion rather than spectacle. Plus the stack of books a stepmother handed her that redirected her whole life, the screenplay she is…
More episodes of For The Love With Jen Hatmaker Podcast
- Encore: Barbara Brown Taylor on Being the Saint of Small Things
- Priya Parker on Fighting Well, and Why Conflict Is Not Sin
- Your Life Is the Assignment: Jen Hatmaker Solo Episode
- Jodi Picoult on Banned Books, Buried Truths, and the Story Behind Hollow Bones
- Your House Is Talking to You with Myquillyn Smith
- Listener Voicemail Day: Five Women Say the Quiet Thing Out Loud
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the For The Love With Jen Hatmaker Podcast podcast page.